Yesterday’s document from the National Archives daily document feed was an image of the Massachusetts Election Ballot from 1960. Seeing the ballot reminded me of a good resource for teaching about Presidential campaigns and elections. The Living Room Candidate has videos of almost every Presidential campaign commercial from 1952 through 2008. A video of one of Kennedy’s campaign commercials from 1960 is embedded below.

Applications for Education
The Living Room Candidate is a great resource for teaching lessons about the role of media and advertising in political campaigns. The Living Room Candidate has a good resource page for teachers which provides a series of eight sequential lesson plans.

The Living Room Candidate could also be a good resource for anyone that teaches a media studies course as your students can easily watch the evolution of television advertising through the 20th Century.